A Guide to

PowerPoint

PowerPoint
PowerPoint is a part of the Microsoft
Office package.
It is a presentation software
program that has many of the
functions available in Microsoft
Word.

PowerPoint Continued
To display a presentation, you
need:
A computer (desktop or laptop)
LCD projector
White board or screen for projection

Seeing (and Hearing)

Is Believing
PowerPoint presentations can
enhance understanding and
retention of concepts.
Audiovisual aids should be
relevant to the speech topic.

Designing Presentation Aids

Simplicity
Do not add too much content.
Keep bullets short

Visual aids should:

Reinforce
Support
Summarize what you say

Designing Presentation Aids

Continuity
Use the same design
throughout your presentation

Designing Presentation Aids

Continuity
Maintain continuity in:

Colors
Fonts
upper and lowercase letters
Styling
Boldface
Underlining
Italics

Designing Presentation Aids

Typeface
Typeface:
a specific style of lettering
Arial
Times Roman
Courier New
Tahoma
Monotype Corsiva

Designing Presentation Aids

Font Size
Fonts:
sets of sizes (called the point size)
24 point
20 point
18 point
16 point

10 point

upper and lower cases

Designing Presentation Aids

Typeface Style And Font Size
Check that your lettering stands
apart from your background.
Use a typeface that is simple, easy to
read, and doesnt distract from your
message.
Dont overuse boldface, underlining
or italics. Use upper-and lowercase
type.

Designing Presentation Aids

Color
Use bold, bright colors to
emphasize important points.
Use softer, lighter colors.
Avoid dark backgrounds.

A How-To Guide for

Using Microsoft
PowerPoint as a
Presentation Aid

How-To Guide to PowerPoint

This guide offers straightforward
advice that will help you use Microsoft
PowerPoint to create effective and
enjoyable presentations.

You dont want your slides

to look like this:
Title
too
smal
l
Font is
small
and
hard to
read
Clip art is too large; only one piece is

Colors on
the slide
are
distractin
g
Texts
overlap
and have
strange
formattin
g

Lets Begin!
PowerPoint is a Microsoft application.
If you are proficient in programs
such as Word and Excel, you are
already familiar with over 100
common commands used by
Microsoft Office software.

Lets Begin!
NOTE: All of the icons, example
buttons, and toolbars shown in this
slide show are taken from the PC
version of PowerPoint. The Macintosh
version is similar, yet slightly different.

To Use PowerPoint
Become familiar with the toolbars
Select your presentation option
Learn how to create a slide
Learn how to organize design elements
Learn how to balance design elements

Men
u
bar

Learning the Toolbars

Forma
t-ting
toolba
r

Standar
d
toolbar

View
buttons

Drawing toolbar

Common tasks
toolbar

Learning the Toolbars

The Menu bar
The Standard toolbar
The View toolbar
The Drawing toolbar
The Formatting toolbar
The Common Tasks toolbar

Learning the Toolbars

The Menu bar contains the commands for
which shortcuts exist on the toolbars.
For instance, under File you can find the option to
Save your presentation, which is also available on
the Standard toolbar.
In the Formatting menu, you can click on
Alignment and change the flow of text on your
screen. You can also click one of the alignment
icons on the Formatting toolbar to perform the
same task.

Learning the Toolbars

The Standard toolbar contains a
number of useful shortcuts:
New presentation
Open a new or existing
presentation
Save
Print
Spelling

Learning the Toolbars

The Standard toolbar also includes a

number of other shortcut features:
Insert a Microsoft Word Table
Insert a Microsoft Excel Table
Insert a Chart
Insert Clip Art
The Office Wizard. When you click this
and type a question, it will search the
Help index for possible answer.

Learning the Toolbars

The View toolbar gives different
options for viewing slides:
Slide View: shows slides one by one
Outline View: shows an outline of all slide text
Slide Sorter View: places all the slides on one
screen in slide format
Note Pages View: allows you to add and read
notes below each slide
Slide Show: allows you to see the presentation

Learning the Toolbars

The Drawing toolbar gives shortcuts to:
AutoShapes: draw lines, arrows, rectangles, and
ovals; access the AutoShapes menu
Text boxes: draw these where you wish to add text
on a blank slide or add text to an existing slide
Line color, font color, and fill color options, with
menus
Dash style and 3-D options
The Draw button presents a menu of other ways to
manipulate your text and clip art, including
rotation, alignment, and alterations to
AutoShapes.

Learning the Toolbars

The Formatting toolbar allows you to:
Change font
Change font size
Add boldface, italics, underlining, and
shading to text
Create animation effects
Change paragraph alignment

Learning the Toolbars

The New Slide button inserts a new
slide directly following the slide
currently being viewed.
The Slide Layout button gives choices
of layouts for different pre-designed
text box and clip art formations.
The Apply Design button gives predesigned slide aesthetic options.

Learning the Toolbars

Finally, on the View menu you can
choose which toolbars are
available at any give time:
Click View
Scroll down to Toolbars
Select or deselect your preferences

Select Presentation Option

When PowerPoint launches you will

see the screen above.
Here you select how you would like to
create your presentation.

Select Presentation Option

The AutoContent
Wizard is useful for
those who are
unfamiliar with
PowerPoint or who
need extra help.
It sets up an index of
slides with preloaded
titles, points,
subpoints, and
designs.

Select Presentation
Option
The Template
option provides
moderate flexibility
in designing
presentations.
You choose from 28
templates to
organize your
points, subpoints,
and design.

Select Presentation
Option
The Blank
Presentation
option offers the
most flexibility.
Users customize
every aspect of the
design for each
individual slide.

The following slides will

teach you how to work
from Blank Presentation.

How to Create a Slide

Click New Slide to select a layout for
the title slide.
To change the color of the slide either
right-click it and select Slide Color
Scheme or select Format and then
Slide Color Scheme from the Menu bar.

How to Create a Slide

You choose the color scheme and
format of the slide, and if you wish you
can also apply these choices to all of
the following slides.
You can change the color scheme of
one or all of your slides at any time.

How to Create a Slide

To change the order of the slides, first
select Slide Sorter View (
) from the
View toolbar. You can move slides by
cutting and pasting or dragging and
dropping
To delete a slide, either click on it while
in Slide Sorter View or go to it in Slide
View (
), then select Edit from the
Menu bar and click on Delete Slide.

Organizing Design Elements

Text
Clip art and pictures
Animation effects
Balancing the
elements

Organizing Text
As you
can see
from this
slide,
text
boxes
can be
put

Click on the icon on

the Drawing
toolbar.
With the cursor, draw
the approximate size
you need for your text.

Organizing Text
You can expand the box to include more text or make it
smaller to make room for other design elements on the slide.

The predesigned
selections from
the Slide Layout
screen offer the
most logical and
often-used
layouts.

Organizing Text

Use a readable font and font size

for each different aspect of the
page (a good size range is
between 20-60 points).
Be consistent from slide to slide
with fonts and font sizes.
Choose colors that will ensure that
your text is readable and your
slides do not appear distracting.

Organizing Text
Dont use too many different
fonts.
DONT USE ALL CAPS.
Avoid fonts that are distracting:
Braggadocio
OzHandicraft BT

Shelley Volante BT

Organizing Text
Dont include your entire speech on the
slides. Instead highlight important points.
To determine what information is best to
include in your presentation, you should:
Review your speech outline.
Identify points that can be illustrated,
such as key terms and their definitions,
statistics, or charts and graphs.

Organizing Clip Art and Pictures

To insert clip art onto your slide you can:
Select a slide layout that has a set space
for clip art. When working on that slide,
simply double-click on the clip art space
and it will take you to the Microsoft Clip
Gallery.
Use the Insert menu, click Picture, and
then select Clip Art.
Click on the shortcut icon:

Organizing Clip Art and Pictures

To insert your own photos or graphics
rather than ones from the gallery,
click Insert, scroll to Picture, and
select From File.
Here you can browse your computer
and choose art from your own files.

Organizing Clip Art and Pictures

If you cannot find what you need in
the gallery or your own resources,
you have another option. Downloads
of more images are available free
from Microsoft via the Internet.
In the gallery, click on the
icon in
the bottom right corner.
Search by key word to find what you
need.

Organizing Clip Art and Pictures

PowerPoint can incorporate graphs and charts

as well.
On the Standard toolbar, there are shortcuts

for inserting Microsoft Word tables and

Microsoft Excel worksheets and
graphs

Change the numbers and labels on the graphs

or charts to fit your information.

Organizing Clip Art and Pictures

Remember: use
clip art, pictures,
charts, and
graphs only to
illustrate points,
not as fillers.

Organizing Animation Effects

PowerPoint has a variety of different ways
that text and art can be animated.
For example:
Fly from BottomLeft
Blinds
Vertica
l
Dissolv
e
Peek from
Bottom

Spira
l

Appea
r

Stretch from
Zoom
Top
In
Wipe
Box Out
Right
Crawl
from
Checkerboard
Right
Across

Organizing Animation Effects

These effects can be interesting
additions to your presentation, but
they can also be distracting. Use them
sparingly to add emphasis.
To animate, right-click on the text or
image and select Custom Animation
from the menu.
Select the effect you want to use,
determine the order of the animations
on the slide, and make sure to preview.

Organizing Animation Effects

Take time while in this screen to determine
how your animation effects will appear.
Clicking on the Timing menu gives you
options so that your textboxes, clip art,
and other animation elements can be
presented on a mouse click, automatically,
or automatically after a preset length of
time.

Balancing the Elements

Even if you follow all the suggestions
for setting up your slide and its
elements, you still may find that your
presentation is hard to follow.
It is important to go back through your
completed presentation and make sure
that the overall experience of watching
it is pleasant as well as educational.

Balancing the Elements

Defining a balanced slide may seem
like a matter of opinion, but there are
concrete criteria, including:
Clip art and text must fit together well.
No element -- title, points, graphics -should overpower the others.
Headings should be consistent in size and
placement. They should be large and
clear.
Easy to understand.

Example of a Balanced Slide

Text is
easy to
read and
well
sized.
The clip
art
illustrates
the slide
and is well
placed on
the layout.

The title
is large
and
clear.
Good use
of
contrastin
g colors
on slide
and in
font.

Example of an Unbalanced Slide

Text is
too
small.

Clip art
is too
large.
This slide is hard to read and places
unnecessary emphasis on the artwork.

Title
and
color
schem
e are
still
fine.

Giving Your
Presentation
Practice your speech
Time yourself.